Hello, my name is Dagger and I am a serval. In this picture I am only five weeks old, but as you will see, I am growing fast!!! Please have a seat and learn all about me and what it is like for my human family to have me in their home. You can ask my mom just about anything, and she will do her best to answer accurately. I am glad you came to learn about me. Have a great time!!!
So what am I? I am a serval and my wild relatives come from a variety of places in Africa. I am much smaller than the big cats like lions and tigers, but still bigger than a domestic house cat. When I am all grown up I will weigh about 30 pounds. I love night life more than daytime, so when my humans are just getting ready to go to bed, I am just getting started. I get so wound up at night that I keep my humans up sometimes just running and jumping through the house. Mom says I don’t have the graceful gene that house cats have either, but instead I have the “go back and make sure I broke everything” gene, but they still love me.
What do servals eat? Well, in the wild, 90% of my diet would be made up of snakes, lizards, frogs, rodents and insects. The other 10% of my diet, if I were wild, would be birds Some servals have been known to jump 12 feet straight up and snatch a bird right out of the sky. But I am not wild, so my humans hunt at the local grocery store and bring me turkey, chicken and sometimes I even get fish. They have to put extra vitamins, minerals and calcium in my food to keep me healthy.
How old will I grow to be? In the wild servals live 15 to 20 years. But because my humans take such good care of me I will live to be 20 to 25 years old. For my humans that means no more long vacations for a long, long time. I need such special treatment that I cannot be left on my own for more than a few hours at a time, but I can’t go on vacation with them either, so they just can’t go. I have domestic cat friends that live with me. My humans had to get them at the same time they got me because once I am grown up, I will not make new animal friends very easily. My humans have this horrid thing they call a dog. I don’t like her at all, but I am learning to tolerate her presence. I am not a good pet for most people. Even though I am a loving guy, it takes a lot of effort to take care of me.
I do love my humans, and I show them how much I love them by purring and head butting them in their sleep. I know they just love that!! They like it when I dip my feet in my water dish and try to curl up on their chests at 3:00 in the morning too. But I am a very hard animal to take care of. I need a ton of space and if I don’t get to go outside when I want as an adult, I will spray in the house. Some people say that even if I have more than enough space, I will spray in the house anyway. My mom says owning a serval is like having an ADHD two year old with sharp teeth and claws. I am always chewing on something or climbing on something or tormenting my domestic cat friends. I am a go go go sort of guy and my humans seem to need more sleep than I do. My mom says she is brain dead because I keep her awake at night, but I think she was just born that way. Don’t tell her I said that please.
Flowers By Dagger
Anyway, I am a really neat cat, but training, raising and living with me, take a massive life change that can be very hard to live with. So if you know someone who wants a serval, make sure they understand how hard it is to raise one. I will only bond with one family and if that family gets rid of me, I will be a sad, unhappy and unhealthy serval for the rest of my life. Thank you again for coming to learn about me.
Dagger
